Watching...

Cars. I should know by now not to underestimate Pixar. I was hating this movie during the first 15 minutes. It was loud and obnoxious and seemed to be pandering to NASCAR nation. I shoulda knowed gooder. It was all one big sucker punch. In the second act, it turned into something quite wonderful, which is all the more amazing considering that the plot was ripped off from the forgettable Michael J. Fox vehicle (heh!) Doc Hollywood. (These guys are slumming -- A Bug's Life at least ripped off Seven Samurai.) And of course, like all Pixar movies, it had a raucous, frenetic finale that wrapped it all up in a sweet and funny package. It even attacked a Republican president in pretty blunt fashion. OK, it was Eisenhower, who, in the movie's vision, destroyed good decent small town America with his confounded interstate highway system. Get your kicks on Route 66! Actually I'm sympathetic to that argument, even if it is a gross oversimplification, and even if you can't just revive a bypassed town by faith and good works, not even if you're a hotshot rookie race car.

Overall, I'd rate this right up there with Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story. (The end credits sequence with car versions of these and other Pixar movies was a hoot!)

Oh, and yes, the kids loved it.